In a certain big successful company pilots are confined to do CRM online, home alone, with a 20’ learning module. That pretty much sums up what these bosses think of it: “…now go do that crap in your room, leave me alone and when you have ticked the box, we’ll all forget about it”.
The basic idea of CRM was to even out barriers during team work, to enhance monitoring, intervention or warning, all in the name of safety. It was then extended to bringing out the best of every fellow team worker, to enhance individual motivation and to gather good ideas for the benefit of he whole entity.
The mentioned barriers are mostly due to a specific hierarchy. It can be based on grade, age, sex, religion, cast, provenance and many other subjects deemed sensitive by any authority of the entity. Right there lies the first (and unfortunately final) obstacle to sense or nonsense of any CRM dealings: The readiness (or capacity) of any authority in the line of hierarchy of the entity to accept intervention, suggestion or even criticism of a subordinate.
Reading through aviation forums, discussing the issue with fellow airmen and even more through personal experience, I must say that this readiness was initially there, no doubt. The recent years, especially as the airline industry was in a deep crisis, has brought in a new breed of managers however. Their merits originated more in marketing and bean-counting than in operations or field experience. This lack of insight made that their readiness to accept CRM faded to “…you guys do that thing, it might suit your dealings at your level. But this stops right over your heads, we take over from there and it’s take it or leave.” Adding to that is the particular sensitivity of the owners of some very successful new airlines. Success has always set a new tone, irrespective of the moral content. Under pretext of a lot of unnecessary self declared “sensitive issues”, many achievements of CRM can be conveniently kept under the rug and nobody, neither individuals nor regulatory or control bodies, dare to even raise the issue. It would be the fastest way out.
Today CRM is reduced to a fig leaf.